by Lis Lucassen
“Your dad was here yesterday! How are you, boy?” He pointed at Dan’s sweater. “He told me what happened. Sorry to hear it.” Hernando had the Hell’s Angel look down to a tee with his arms covered in tattoos, his enormous beard, and his generally intimidating appearance. The fact that he was actually a gifted cook with a knack for delicate fish recipes was a surprise for most people who took him at face value. “So. What’s up?”
Dan couldn’t stop the corners of his mouth from curling up, and Hernando mirrored his smile. “I know that smile, mister.”
“Yeah. I need a table for two for tonight.”
Hernando’s trademark guffaw boomed through the room once more. “Oh yes, my man. I can help you with that!”
35
Lynn
At exactly seven o’clock, Dan emerged from the staircase. He halted in front of her and stretched out his hand. “You coming?”
Lynn put her hand in his and his fingers closed around hers. The memory of their previous trip to the beach, of his lips exploring her body, made her legs unsteady. She was glad Dan’s hand supported her.
He ushered her to the hotel parking lot. This time, he hadn’t gotten a jeep. Lynn followed him as they went on foot, crossing the street and turning left before taking a narrow track wedged in between the rock face and the edge of the beach.
In the meantime, Dan had let go of her hand because the path was too narrow to walk side by side. He was right behind her.
“Where are we going?” Lynn heard the longing in her voice, fueled by his touch and the persistent memory of their previous encounter. She purposely ignored the bitter aftertaste of that memory. Dan was as charming as he had been before – no sign of his Mr. Hyde persona.
“We’re almost there.”
Lynn bit her lip. She had so many questions to ask him. She wanted to tell him so many things herself, but the unpredictability of his reactions made her cautious. And of course, he always seemed to know how to touch her sore spots by asking all the right questions himself.
The cobblestoned path ran into the concrete of the boulevard. Dan joined her side again. To Lynn’s disappointment, he’d slipped his hands in the pockets of his knee-length shorts. She watched him as he leisurely strolled down the boulevard with her, outwardly relaxed. He was wearing a dark-green long-sleeved shirt with a V-neck today, showing the collar of another shirt he was wearing underneath. “Aren’t you hot?” she inquired.
Dan sped up and Lynn suddenly had to make an effort to keep up with him. He came to a stop in front of one of the many restaurants that lined the boulevard. “This is it.” He pulled the door open and gestured for her to go inside. She peered down the winding staircase and hesitated for a beat before awkwardly putting her foot on the first step down. She’d never been to this restaurant, because the door was never open and the entrance didn’t exactly look welcoming with its dark wooden slats and the painted octopuses and fishes in black.
When she got downstairs, she was in front of yet another door, which led to a small foyer. A girl was there, standing behind some kind of podium with an open diary on top of it. Her mouth curved into a fake smile as her eyes met Lynn’s. Her smile widened, though, when she spotted Dan behind her. He walked up to the podium and tapped the diary.
“Ah, the table for two. Booking for Mertens?” She looked at Dan expectantly and when he nodded, she grabbed two menus from the shelf behind her and led the way through an arch in the wall. Lynn followed their host inside and cast a curious look around her. It took her a while before she truly registered what it was she was looking at. She stopped right in the middle of the dining room and did a three-sixty degree turn to take it all in. There was water everywhere. The walls were made of glass, and behind it was the sea. Eagerly, she looked up. Sure enough, the ceiling was made of glass too, the water above her head showing her all the different gradients of gray-blue, green, and almost purple. Only now did she realize that they were below sea level – that this was a restaurant under the sea.
“Oh,” was all she could say. Everything moved, flowing around her in waves. She had to stop herself from running over to one of the glass walls and pressing her nose against it like a little child. Dan passed her and took her hand. He carefully pulled her along to a table in the back of the dining room, positioned in an alcove surrounded by water. Lynn was reluctant to sit down at first – she wasn’t nearly done looking at the wondrous scenery all around her – but when she noticed that both Dan and the waitress were waiting for her to take her seat, she pulled out the chair and sat down. Dan sat down across from her and took the menus that were handed to him.
“I’ll bring you a bottle of our nice wine, yes? I’m Emma, by the way.” She put the emphasis on the word ‘nice’ as she bent over to set Dan’s wine glass face up. He nodded and she winked at him before turning around and sashaying away.
Dan didn’t seem to notice Emma’s display of seduction. He handed Lynn one of the menus before putting his own down on the table and fixing her with his brown eyes. “You’ve never been to Underworld before?”
Lynn shook her head. “It never looked too inviting from the outside,” she admitted.
“Well, looks can be deceiving. That was kind of the point in this case.”
Apparently, the look she gave him in response was pretty sheepish, because he burst out laughing. Lynn hid behind the menu and checked out all the dishes on offer. She decided to go for the shrimp pasta and lowered the menu to look at him. “What about you? How did you find out about this restaurant?”
Dan traced the outline of the menu with his fingers. “We used to come here a lot, when I was thirteen. My father designed it.”
“Designed it?”
Dan shrugged. “My dad’s an architect, so he does a lot of assignments like these. Crazy stuff, you know. Like an underwater restaurant.”
She didn’t get the chance to react, because Emma strolled up to their table carrying a bottle of wine and a bread basket. She took their orders, giving Dan a stare that lasted just a tad too long when he told her he’d like the salmon. He declined her offer to pour the wine.
“I didn’t know your father was an architect. Is that something you see yourself doing in the future?” As she listened to herself, she cringed and decided it might be best to click her own mute button for the rest of the evening. The question of ‘what do you want to be when you grow up’ had undoubtedly landed her in his top five of most favorite dates of all times.
Dan put her glass face up, poured her some wine, and put the bottle down on the table. “Not really.” He took a sip. “My plan, actually, was to play basketball professionally.”
“Oh. Wow. Yeah, that is different.” She picked a mini-roll from the basket and broke it in two. “But that’s not going to happen?”
“No.” For a second, it seemed he wanted to leave it at that, but then something in his posture shifted. His brown eyes were no longer connected to hers, but were focused on a point just above her shoulder. “I had an offer. A scholarship for a college in Utah. But – that didn’t work out in the end.”
“So you’re really good.” It was clear Dan was trying his best to be open about it, and she didn’t know how to proceed. She needed to tread carefully here. Hurting or insulting him had proven to be only too easy by making the wrong comment.
Dan shrugged. “I used to be. I haven’t played for over a year. So I guess my skills have gotten a bit rusty by now.”
“Why did you stop? Playing, I mean?” In the meantime, her hands had torn the bread roll into six minuscule pieces scattered across the tabletop between them. She hastily scooped up the pieces and dumped them back in the basket.
His reply was another shrug. “Something came up?” His brown eyes bored into hers and Lynn was shocked by the pain in his dark irises. And then, he turned his gaze away, smiling uneasily. “Sorry. I’m sort of socially awkward sometimes. Especially when I want to impress a girl.”
She felt her cheeks flush pink and all she could
do was nod stupidly. Quickly, she threw back a large gulp of wine. It felt like velvet on her tongue.
“What about you?”
“Me?”
He nodded, tapping the foot of the wine glass with his finger. “I’d like to find out more about the girl I’m trying to impress.” An innocent grin played around his mouth. “So I’ll know exactly how to impress her.”
She was sure by now her face had taken on the same color as the glass of red wine in front of her. Lynn looked sideways, at the endlessly deep and dark water. “I’d like to be…” She shook her head.
“Lynn?”
The way he said her name made her look up.
“I can see who you are.”
She swallowed her doubts away. Here, she had nothing to fear. No demands were made, no expectations of others that she needed to meet. Esmee was gone, and her cousin was no longer around to tell her the how and the why. With Dan, she could be herself. If she still remembered who she was, and how to be that girl again.
36
Dan
“I’d like to study physics most of all. I was really good at it in high school. It’s logical and organized. There are rules, and as long as you follow them you end up where you’re supposed to. If you can’t figure out the problem, it means you’ve skipped some rules.” Lynn made a dismissive gesture, as though she wanted to say he shouldn’t take her words that seriously.
“So why don’t you? You were a senior this year, weren’t you? I take it you graduated?”
She nodded and worried her bottom lip. He’d noticed that tic before. She did it whenever she felt uncomfortable, whenever too much attention was focused on her. Dan wondered if she realized just how sexy it made her look. The desire to feel those same lips on his body gripped him. He almost choked on his wine and tried to focus on her words.
“Yes, I did. It seems like a lifetime ago but it’s just been a few months. Not even.” She had to be talking about her finals. Lynn shook her head and sank her teeth into another bread roll. “And I’m starting teacher training college after the summer. Maybe I can take up studies in physics after I graduate from there, or something.”
“Why not skip teacher training and move on to something you really want to do?” Dan cocked his eyebrows and shot her a puzzled look. He didn’t understand why she didn’t just follow her heart. Why she didn’t choose what she was good at. If that choice was still his to make – he wouldn’t be here, simple as that. He’d be in Utah right now. He’d be on the field shooting hoops or in a classroom brushing up on his English.
“Because…” Again, she shook her head and stared ahead. “Because Esmee and I would have gone there together. Her father had arranged an apartment for us in Rotterdam and we’d live together and everything. Esmee always adored children. She knew she wanted to be a teacher from a very early age.”
“What about you?”
She glanced up at him, and the question in her eyes wasn’t just for him. A deeper layer was hiding under her insecurity. “Me?”
“Yes. You. What do you want?”
“I don’t know – I don’t know anymore. Esmee always took charge and I followed. Actually, I never had to ponder my future because it was all laid out for me. Something like that.”
“But it no longer is now.”
“No. No, I guess not.”
At that moment, a waiter showed up with their food. Dan stared at the fish on his plate and considered all the options of his own future, which had veered off into the realm of the impossible – all due to one stupid decision.
“You know, sometimes I feel as though I’ve changed into someone else.” Dan looked up at her. “After Esmee died. Sometimes, I wonder…” She paused for a moment, probably looking for the right words to say. “I wonder whether an event like that can change a person so substantially or whether you never were that person in the first place, and now you are who you were always supposed to be.”
Lynn laughed, but it sounded joyless. It was a sound of anxiety, and her words fell down on him like ice-cold rain.
“I’m sorry,” she apologized, which was completely unnecessary. “Enjoy your meal.”
He wished he could. He wished he could just enjoy the food and her company, but what she’d said, and how she’d said it – it had all sounded so tentative and so vulnerable. It made him feel naked, and all the ugliness inside of him exploded and pushed its way outside like a festering sore.
“Dan? Have I said something wrong?”
Quickly he leaned over and his fingers stroked her left hand as she put down her fork indecisively. “No, you haven’t. On the contrary. You’ve said it all just the right way.”
37
Lynn
For a beat, Lynn was afraid she’d said too much. For a second, Dan seemed to be about to hide behind his invisible shield once more. He fell silent and didn’t look her in the eye. She exhaled with relief only after his hand caressed hers again.
They stuck to simple topics for the rest of the evening. Harmless chit-chat. Dan made her crack up with a story about Jason, who’d tried to save his skin after breaking the expensive plates belonging to their grandparents by gluing the pieces back together with Super Glue. Dan thought his attempt was entirely legitimate since their parents had always taught them to come up with your own solution if you caused a problem.
He didn’t tell Lynn much about himself, though. It made her even more curious to find out what Dan was hiding.
After dessert – a royal sundae with hot cherries and chocolate sauce that she ate way too much of – Lynn followed Dan up the stairs and into the balmy evening air.
“Thanks for taking care of the bill,” she mumbled, feeling slightly embarrassed as he stuffed his wallet back in his back pocket.
Dan shrugged. “No worries. My dad’s credit card works everywhere.” He chuckled and extended his hand to her. She looped her fingers through his and felt giddy like a school girl. Maybe it was the wine, or maybe it was his presence and his touch, or a combination of everything. Lynn didn’t care. It had been a while since she’d felt this carefree.
Just for a second, she thought he was setting course for the path running along the cliffs, and she felt a bit disappointed. She didn’t want to go back to the hotel just yet. She didn’t want to go back to her empty room and say goodbye to him and this wonderful night.
Her breath caught in her throat. She wanted more. More of this – more of him.
Relief and nerves warred for precedence in her stomach when she noticed Dan wasn’t taking her back to the path. She walked next to him as he crossed the boulevard and took her to the beach. Her sandals sank into the warm sand. The sea was dark blue, and the foam on top of the waves was gray in comparison. The water had swallowed up a large part of the golden beach, almost reaching up to the neatly piled collection of beach chairs. For a while, they strolled along the tide line in silence, until Dan gently tugged at her hand to steer her to a protruding part of the cliffside. He helped her climb the slippery stone, rising from the black water like rocks from an alien planet. The beach tapered off into a natural sand basin surrounded by rocks and water.
Dan lowered himself onto the sand. She had no choice but to follow him there, since he refused to let go of her hand.
The crashing of the waves dictated the pace of her erratic heartbeat, gradually making her heart fall into step with that natural rhythm. Lynn stretched out her legs and looked up into the night sky, where the moon and the stars seemed like scattered gold on dark velvet.
The tension in her body started to thrum louder when Dan turned to face her. It felt like a terrible loss when he disentangled his fingers from hers. His face was inches away from hers and her lips parted slightly as if they had a mind of their own.
“I’m going to kiss you.”
The words flitted around her like intangible butterflies, and Lynn couldn’t catch them.
“But you can’t touch me.”
The light feeling dissipated and she carefully m
oved backward a few inches, replacing his wonderful proximity with a cold feeling of emptiness.
“Why not?”
“Because…” Dan sat up straight. “Does it matter?”
“Yes.” She nodded to emphasize that one simple word. “I mean, I like you, Dan.” God, she sounded like a bumbling child. But what she said was true. “And I do want you – but not like this.”
He observed her, his head slightly tilted to one side, and his eyes half closed. When his gaze collided with hers, the pain and insecurity in his eyes was only too evident. Suddenly, she felt the urge to show him that he wasn’t alone in this. That every single person in the world carried something terrible with them. Something ugly. Something that made them shy away from a simple touch, a gesture, or a loving word. And that shyness was caused by an ever-present sense of guilt – the idea of being undeserving of love.
Although she didn’t know how to start her story, the words poured out like an unstoppable flow once she’d let out the first sentence.
“Esmee was hit by a car on purpose. And I witnessed it. She called me twice, leaving two messages on my voicemail. I never erased them. The first message was a happy one, but the second time she called me it was because she was in a panic. She’d had another argument with Rodney, her boyfriend. He was drunk as a skunk and he wouldn’t let her leave the party. He can be quite,” she groped around for the right word to describe Rodney, but came up short so she finally settled for, “obsessive, I guess. I don’t know how to explain.” She cast a furtive look around, somehow afraid that Rodney would be able to hear her. Impossible, of course, but still.
“You’re scared of him?”
She nodded. “When Esmee and he hooked up he was really sweet to her at first. But gradually he turned into this psycho guy. He only allowed her to go out if he could come with her. When school was out, he’d pick her up and they’d go to his place. And I saw bruises on her arm a couple times, and I swear they looked like fingerprints. Esmee said it was nothing, that I was blowing things out of proportion.”